How many of you remember the exciting show band, the Sensational Rising Suns?
The Rising Suns were another of the incredible horn bands booked, promoted and sold through the legendary Mid Continent Productions booking agency of Lawrence, Ks.
With such groups as the Fabulous Flippers, the Young Raiders, the Roarin’ Red Dogs, the Blue Things and Spider & The Crabs, the Rising Suns were another in the long line of creative and highly successful Kansas show and horn bands.
How many of you remember listening to night-time radio to KOMA out of Oklahoma City and KAAY out of Little Rock, Ark.? We heard all those Mid Continent band ads. It didn’t matter, once you heard the ads it was a PRIORITY to get to those dances and see these bands in person and what everyone was talking about. The Rising Sons were one of the very best in the business! When the Suns showed up in town, it was always a major music event.
The group started out in 1967 in Topeka, Kan. Soon they were on the road nonstop working for Mid Continent. Six months into their new career the group would experience a terrible bus accident. Lost was the bus, all instruments and equipment, not to mention stage wear. ALL was lost. After such a catastrophic accident, the group broke up and no longer traveled as the Rising Suns.
Quickly, Mid Continent needed to find another Rising Suns and fast, as bookings were starting to pile up and they had invested a lot of money into the name of the Rising Sons. This time they recruited a great horn band out of Coffeyville, Ks. who were originally called the Dalton Gang. The band took on the new name of the Rising Suns and would tour as the Rising Suns all the way into 1972.
This line-up of the Rising Suns was an eight man horn and show band that featured Mid Continent’s first interracial soul group fronted by black singers “Big” Walter Downing and Izzy Martin. Walter was the younger brother of the legendary R&B performer, “Big” Al Downing.
Mid Continent was not sure that a multi-cultural band would be accepted in many of the Midwest’s small rural ballrooms, but the opposite occurred, as the band became one of the hottest sellers on the Mid Continent roster. It didn’t take long to see that the kids that attended the dances had no problems whatsoever with a mixed black and white group.
With Downing’s and Martin’s incredible live shows, they became a midwest soul and show rage. One special aspect of their show was that their last set of the evening featured a complete costumed recreation of James Brown’s Live At The Apollo show. It was a jaw dropper.
Because of being a Mid Continent band, they virtually played every ballroom in Iowa and Minnesota. In Iowa they played the Cobblestone Ballroom-Storm Lake, Surf Ballroom-Clear Lake, Val Air-Des Moines, Danceland Ballroom-Cedar Rapids, and the legendary Roof Garden Ballroom at Lake Okoboji. In Minnesota they played Georges Ballroom in New Ulm, the Kato Ballroom in Mankato, the Marigold Ballroom in Minneapolis and our own Hollyhock Ballroom to name a few.
In 1972 this line-up of the Rising Suns would disband with Downing and Martin relocating to California and becoming members of national recording artists, the Undisputed Truth with their big hit recording of “Smiling Faces.”
After this group broke up, Mid Continent put together another group of Rising Sons and put them back on the road. They lasted until 1976. The Sensational Rising Suns have been inducted into the Iowa and Kansas Rock & Roll Halls of Fame.
Izzy Martin is living in California in retirement and Big Walter Downing sadly passed away in 2004 from complications from diabetes.
How can we forget those incredible live horn and soul bands that came to our Hollyhock Ballroom from Kansas. Those were incredible times!
Until Next Month
Take Care & Remember The Music
Tom Tourville has been writing about Midwest rock & roll for close to 30 years and has published over 25 books based on Midwest rock music history. His latest book on the Hollyhock Ballroom is on sale in Pipestone at Pipestone Publishing and at the Pipestone County Museum. He lives in Lake Okoboji, Iowa, and can be reached at tourvillea@aol.com.